Gambling funds to help improve Chestnuthill Township road

A large chunk of gaming money headed to Chestnuthill Township will help pay for improvements to Lake Mineola Road — improvements that will help move along a plan to build an urgent care center on the road.

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By CHAD SMITH

poconorecord.com

By CHAD SMITH

Posted Feb. 2, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By CHAD SMITH

Posted Feb. 2, 2013 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

A large chunk of gaming money headed to Chestnuthill Township will help pay for improvements to Lake Mineola Road — improvements that will help move along a plan to build an urgent care center on the road.

And now since Lake Mineola Road is slated to be improved, Chestnuthill Township believes now would also be a good time to get started on a separate but related project that would make the road safer and improve traffic flow.

The $600,000 the township received from the state in gaming funds will be used for the reconstruction of 600 feet of the road and the construction of an additional 350 feet of new road to provide access to the urgent care center, which will be owned and operated by Pocono Medical Center, according to Chestnuthill Township Manager David Albright.

Chestnuthill was one of more than a dozen localities in Monroe County to receive these funds, which represent about 2 percent of Mount Airy Casino's yearly profits.

Though Chestnuthill wants Pocono Medical Center to build an urgent care center — the first such center in the West End — there had been questions about who was going to pay for needed road improvements.

Now that the township received these funds, township Planning Commission members will probably have no problem giving the green light to the center when it comes before them, Albright said.

"Needless to say, now that we got these funds, that's huge. That should really help speed the project along," Albright said.

With work to be done on Lake Mineola Road, the township thinks it'd also be a good idea to use some of its money to realign the roadway.

Lake Mineola Road is a 1.5-mile road that connects Route 209 to Route 715. But the road, right up along the bank of Lake Mineola, is narrow and sinuous. The township wants to do away with the path of the current road and create a new, safer road, one that would not be anywhere near the lake but would still connect the two routes.

The township hopes that after it reconstructs the road, more motorists who want to get over to Route 715 north from Route 209 will use it. If motorists did that, it would decrease traffic around the intersection of routes 209 and 715, which is one of the worst traffic chokepoints in the West End.

Albright said he couldn't exactly say when the township will start the realignment project but expects it will coincide with the work for the urgent care center.